A different kind of play
by Clairavance
Summary: You can't beat him at his own game. You come at him, you will always come off second best. Potential slash?


**READ ME NOTE**

**I'd like to briefly clue you guys in on the back story here.**  
**My friend,_ deathofaraven_, and I are plotting a DMC crossover fic. So, naturally, instead of getting on with the actual story elements and such, I procrastinated a bit. **

**Curiosity got the best of me. I threw Dante in the same room with Julian, the Shadow Man from The Forbidden Game trilogy. Julian is a djinn/genie aka a demon; he specializes in magic and games. Oh. And nightmares. }:3**

**I don't know what I was expecting. I went into it blind. **

**The gist of it is that Julian loves games, and Dante loves to play. It was ugly. Amusing. Downright hot. I still don't know who I'm rooting for. Dante got the upper-hand (as he does) and the skit didn't end well. But Julian doesn't lose (okay, let's not sugarcoat it, he just doesn't like_ admitting defeat_), especially not at his own game, hence, dun dun dadunnnnn, this oneshot came to be.**

*****Moral disclaimer:*** **  
**So, if you know me well, you'd know that this is completely out of my caliber. It just happened. I didn't premeditate this. I'm still in denial whether this even classes as slash. Don't judge me too harshly. I was in it to see Dante naked, naught else, and I only love this piece for the eye-candy. However, take from it what you want. **

**Mmmmm...naked Dante. :)**

**Julian's got his rape face on. (...nyaaaa, it's kinda hot)**

* * *

The woman who answered the door looked quite pale and drawn. "Hi," she breathed a greeting. "I'm Ellie Peterson. Thank you so much for coming, Mr. Dante." She stepped aside to let him in.

Dante surveyed the modestly decorated house with piercing blue eyes as he strolled inside. Curiosity had dragged him to this job... that, and the generous sum of money on offer.

"Please, follow me, it's this way. We've tried everything under the sun to deal with this. We've had priests in and out of our house, and on occasion even witches tried to help us. We've been unsuccessful thus far, then someone stopped by and left your card in our mailbox." The woman rambled on, her voice gradually pitching higher as she spoke.

Dante followed her stealthily up a staircase. He paused when a young woman with curly fair hair and wide, haunted dark eyes peeked at him from another room on the second landing.

"That's my daughter," Ellie explained, and gestured to the girl. "Sarah, come meet Mr. Dante."

Dante assessed her quickly; she looked exhausted, as pale as her mother, and her fear was nearly tangible.

"Hi," Sarah murmured, joining Ellie's side but keeping her gaze diverted to the floor.

"So you ladies have a peeping tom of a ghost, I hear," Dante said lightly.

Sarah glanced at him sharply, then up at her mother before looking down again. "It lives in the water. It always tries to drag me under."

"It tries to drown her," Ellie added.

"It doesn't try to kill me. When it gets hold of me, it takes me under and it always looks like the surface gets further away from me," Sarah said, looking up at Dante earnestly. "Like it's trying to take me."

Dante held her gaze for a moment, and nodded in acknowledgement. "Where's the bathroom?"

He followed them to a compact, brown tiled bathroom and stopped to eye the old club-footed tub filled halfway with water. Sarah refused to move further than the threshold.

"It...you have to get in the tub. Otherwise it doesn't come," she explained at his dazed expression.

"I see. You should go. I'll deal with this," Dante said.

He waited until they were both downstairs before he closed the bathroom door. He shrugged out of his red trench coat and kicked off his boots. Dante went up to the tub and let out a heavy sigh. He pulled his shirt over his head and slid his hands around his pistols. For once, he was severely unprepared on a job. He carefully stepped into the bath with one foot, secured his footing, and then brought his other leg in. He waited a beat, and then sighed again when nothing happened. He slowly lowered himself into the water, and waited.

There was no hint of magic. No trace of anything demonic. No whisper of a ghost.

Dante changed position so many times but there was no winning. The tub was made for midgets, and there was just no getting his long legs comfortable in there. By the time he was sure he'd been in there for over an hour, he hauled himself from the water. He got dressed and ignored the fact that he was dripping water all over the lush carpet as he made his way downstairs to where the small family was nervously huddled together in the lounge. Disappointment didn't even come close to how he perceived this job. He resolved to give them a lecture on watching horror movies about ghosts and bathrooms.

"Did you deal with it?" Ellie asked when she noticed him.

Sarah whipped around to look at him, too, and scrambled to her feet with fearful eyes. "No! No, you can't go. It's not gone."

"There's nothing in the water," Dante said curtly.

"Please, you can't go. You're our last resort. Please," she was in his way, staring up at him with a pleading look that rivaled those Patty conjured up for him often. And that was saying a lot. Patty was a pro at it. Dante felt his resolve crumbling.

"Alright. Maybe I try a different approach. Do you have candles lit and a glass of wine when you take a bath?"

"Mr. Dante!" Ellie said, mortified. "She's only seventeen."

Dante suppressed a smirk when the younger woman blushed. "Maybe if I recreate a similar setting to the one when your ghost shows up, then it will actually surface."

"I don't do anything special when I bath. I usually just try to get out as fast as I can," Sarah said, and grimaced at his soaked trousers. "Maybe you should try it without your pants on."

For a moment everyone stared at everyone else awkwardly. Dante lifted an eyebrow at them, and shrugged. "Sure."

Back in the bathroom, the first thing he did was turned it upside down and closely observed every groove, container and toilet roll, until he was satisfied there were no hidden cameras. He locked the bathroom door and topped the tub up with hot water. Again, he hung up his coat, kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head. He took a moment to wiggle out of his pants, the wet material clung to him like it didn't want to let go. He left his clothes in a careless pile on the floor.

He climbed back into the tub and, holding his pistols high, he slowly submerged his body underwater with a deep, satisfied sigh, and waited. He could hear the buzz of traffic outside. A dog barking incessantly next door. The hot-water pump thrumming in the roof somewhere. The barely audible whistle of a draft squeezing in under the door.

Maybe it was really a succubus. Or, since it's been shy about facing him, maybe it was an incubus. Or a water nymph. It could be the girl's imagination. Or it could be an actual ghost, in which case, he wasn't sure how he was going to deal with it. Demons were a piece of cake, but ghosts? He wouldn't know where to start.

Or... maybe the ladies downstairs just wanted him naked in their bathroom. Hey, it was a possibility. He'd had far more outrageous requests sent to him in the past. He had to keep an open mind. Women were strange creatures.

The water eventually went cold. Dante sat up to lean over and run more hot water. The cool air traced goosebumps across his pale skin as he did. When he leaned back into the warmer water a minute later, he closed his eyes and tried to envision what this ghost would look like. A beautiful woman with long lashes, maybe. Silk-spun red hair. Big doe eyes that looked as hungry as he felt. Smooth skin. Well-endowed. Oh, yes, she'd have to be well-endowed, that wasn't even a question...

He readjusted his legs with a grimace of discomfort, and propped his feet up against the mouth of the tub.

_Dante..._

Dante started at the sound of his name and glanced around the room in alarm. That sounded an awful lot like... wouldn't it be messed up if it was a-

Something slowly, soundlessly, broke the surface of the water far down between his feet. Dante had his pistols leveled at it in seconds. His eyes widened in denial.

-doppelganger spirit.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Dante said, tilting his head to the side. It made no sense why a spirit like that would be haunting a bathtub. More importantly, Sarah hadn't mentioned anything about ever_ seeing_ the ghost, either. But then, this was no ghost. Dante knew this as he glared back at his own reflection - a darker version of himself. "This... is going to get real awkward."

His reflection sneered in response. "I see you've been expecting me."

Dante went rigid when his foe meaningfully looked at his crotch. For a nano of a second, everything went deafening silent. Dante pulled the triggers instinctively when his opponent lunged at him. His bullets tore through air - where the phantom had been a second ago, there was nothing. Then it resurfaced right through his chest with a demented chuckle, thrusting its face into Dante's.

"What are you going to do, brother? Shoot me with your big, loaded-"

Dante lifted his arm, intending to ram his elbow into the phantom's throat to throw it off him. Instead, the phantom seized his arm mid-air and held it in a paralyzing grip of steel that made his hand cramp. Ebony dropped into the water.

"You want it rough? I'll give it to you rough," the phantom mocked. Dante fired at it with Ivory and watched the bullet fly straight through his mirror image's head. No blood. It didn't even blink, or flinch. It was oblivious and, apparently, invincible.

The second he summoned Rebellion to his hand, his nemesis brought his mouth down on his own. There was a moment of total shock when his sword struck the wall beside him with a sharp clunk, and Dante's mind caught up to what was happening. He tried to pull back, but the phantom caught his jaw in his free hand and gripped it hard, grazing its lips across Dante's mouth.

It evoked an angry growl from Dante whom, for the moment, had to put aside the fact that he was completely naked and about to get real physical. The phantom pressed its weight down when he moved, and then he was pushed under. Dante knew what the girl had meant now. The tub had become a deep, endless pit, the surface becoming further away every second as he was plunged deeper underwater.

Dante gave up resisting quickly. It seemed to stun the phantom momentarily. He grimaced when it somehow slid its tongue past his lips and the taste of strawberries and vanilla filled his mouth. And all the while, as they sank lower into shadowy water, invisible hands stroked and tongues tickled him; from something nibbling his earlobe, to something - he thought it was the phantom - squeezing his butt. There was a disconcerting warmth around his shaft, and he winced when something nipped him sharply in the side.

The tub had been a portal leading down a narrow tunnel. Dante could tell instinctively that they were free of the tunnel - there was a vastness of water spread around him like an ocean, and they were nearly at the bottom. He could see nothing in the darkness, but he could sense a legion of small fries all around him, darting in and out to get a piece of him like piranhas on attack. The space was crammed with them. Space is exactly what he needed.

Time to play.

Dante entwined his legs with those of the phantom and locked its head between his arms. He used his body weight to twist the same moment he bit down hard on the fleshy muscle in his mouth. Blood and smoke squirted back into his throat and he jerked his head back, tearing the tongue out with his teeth. The phantom struggled frantically against him, and with a forceful wrench in just the right direction, he snapped its neck. The breaking bone ricochet through the darkness around him and the phantom turned to water in his arms. Dante tread water; he heard the other shadow creatures snarling, sensed them surrounding him, ready for the kill.

Ivory illuminated the darkness only to tear through the beady red eyes and black forms shifting about like bullets themselves. It was all he could do before his body screamed for oxygen and Dante started for the surface. The harder he kicked toward it, the deeper he seemed to sink. The surface remained an evasive illusion, too far away from him to reach. He tried to summon Rebellion, but the water around him grew thicker and heavier; it burned his eyes and filled his nostrils with brimstone.

Damn it.

He activated his devil trigger and used the momentum to surge upward - and face-planted into something hard with a painful 'oomph'. The tongue he'd been gritting between his teeth fell to the ground. Dante blinked dazedly at a familiar red shape in front of his face. He'd been going up, but it felt like he'd fallen down. The intense urge to draw air into his shrieking lungs was completely absent. He was breathing hard and shallow. His heart was beating against his rib cage like crazy.

Dante pushed himself up from the rug and stared at the couch beside him, totally disoriented. He was back in the office? It couldn't have been a dream. It'd been too real-

"Dante, are you okay?"

He slowly looked up at Nero. "Yeah." He said shakily, and then got himself back together. "Yeah, I'm fine, kid."

"You devil triggered in your sleep," Nero said, stepping back when Dante used the couch to haul himself to his feet.

Dante realised he was right, and beat his devil back under his skin. "So I did."

"That must have been some dream," Nero said worriedly.

"Ah, it was nothin'."

"Really?" Nero asked dubiously.

"I got into a tousle with myself," Dante shrugged, and cringed.

A slow clapping drew the two devil hunter's attention toward the desk. A boy with frost-white hair and a mischievous expression was sitting at Dante's desk; on Dante's chair, with his feet on Dante's table, in Dante's pose. His lean frame was dressed in black and white, and his flaming blue eyes were laughing at them.

"It could have been worse," the boy drawled seriously. "You could have been in a tousle with Vergil. Or Nero, even."

Dante inched away from Nero at the thought and glowered at the boy before snatching up the phantom's tongue from the floor. "Try harder next time, maybe you'll actually win."

"What the fuck is that?" Nero erupted beside him.

Dante had been about to launch the tongue at the boy, but paused at the disgusted expression in Nero's voice. He held it up to show, and for the first time saw what it was. Not just a tongue.

"Dude, that's nasty," Nero said, covering his mouth and backing away.

"Yich!" Dante dropped it and nearly leaped away from it, shaking his hand as though it had bit him. They both stared down at the severed dick for a second. Then, in a throbbing flash of red, Dante was back in devil form and stormed after the cackling, mischievous boy.

* * *

_**Daaahahaha, RUN JULIAN RUN! XD**_

_**I know, it's gross. What do you expect? I'm a horror writer *sheepish smile***_


End file.
